North Korea set to rubber stamp nuclear build-up

A NORTH Korean parliament was scheduled to pass decisions made at a meeting where leader Kim Jong Un vowed maximum efforts to expand his nuclear weapons programme in face of what he described as US hostility.

The country’s official Korean Central News Agency said deputies led by senior official Choe Ryong Hae, president of the Supreme People’s Assembly’s presidium, laid flowers at the statues of Mr Kim’s grandfather and father, the North’s previous rulers, at Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill as they prepared for the parliamentary session.

They bowed and pledged to “fulfil their responsibility and duty” to carry out the decisions made during the eight-day Workers’ Party congress that ended on Tuesday, the agency said.

Meetings of the Supreme People’s Assembly are usually brief, annual affairs that are intended to approve budgets, formalise personnel changes and rubberstamp policy priorities set by Mr Kim and the ruling party leadership.

State media did not immediately release details from the current session, which could also approve reshuffles within the North’s Cabinet and State Affairs Commission, the government’s highest decision-making body led by Mr Kim.

During the party congress, Mr Kim called for accelerated efforts to build a military arsenal that could viably target US allies in Asia and the American homeland.

He announced an extensive wish-list of new sophisticated assets, including longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, spy satellites and tactical nuclear weapons.

The North showcased some of its most advanced strategic weapons during a nighttime military parade, including what appeared to be a new ballistic missile that is being developed to be fired from submarines.

Analysts say Mr Kim is clearly trying to pressure the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who inherits a derailed nuclear diplomacy from President Donald Trump.

His negotiations with Mr Kim collapsed when the two sides failed to agree on how to lift crippling US-led sanctions in exchange for North Korea’s disarmament steps.

Mr Kim also used the congress to announce new five-year development plans to salvage the broken economy.